(AP) _ Gunmen on Thursday attacked a compound where foreigners work in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region, shooting one foreigner and spiriting another away by boat into the region’s vast network of creeks, police said.
� The boat-borne gunmen hit the compound housing an Italian oil-services company in a suburb of the main oil hub of Port Harcourt during afternoon daylight hours, said a police spokeswoman, Ireju Barasua.
� “The suspected militants went there through the waterway and shot sporadically at the facility. In the process, an expatriate was shot while another expatriate and a Nigerian were taken away,” Barasua told The Associated Press.
� Barasua said the injured expatriate was “feared dead.”
� Barasua said the attack took place at the premises of oil and gas services firm Saipem, which is 43 percent owned by Eni SpA. The company couldn’t immediately be reached for confirmation.
� On Sunday, the main militant group in the region said it was ending a unilateral ceasefire it had announced to give the new government of President Umaru Yar’Adua time to negotiate with fighting factions. The group said talks had made no progress, and that the government had framed one of its leaders, who they said had been arrested in a foreign country.
� The group’s spokesman didn’t immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment about its possible involvement in Thursday’s attack. The group _ known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND _ in late 2005 began targeting the oil in industry in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude producer.
� MEND, which says it’s fighting for more oil-industry revenues for their impoverished region, spearheaded the practice of kidnapping foreigners.
� Criminal gangs without any pretense of political motives also took up kidnapping, and nearly 200 foreigners have been kidnapped since the militant’s activities sparked a decline in security across the region. Hostages are generally released unharmed after a ransom is paid, although at least one died during a rescue attempt by security forces.
� Attacks on the oil industry slackened after Yar’Adua took power in late May, saying that calming the Niger Delta region was a national priority. The government has been talking with various militant groups, and released from prison two leaders from the region who had been jailed on corruption or treason charges.
� That was another stated goal of the MEND militants, who appear to have since fallen out with the two liberated men, saying they had become government stooges. While militants have long been active in the Niger Delta, the MEND fighters appeared much better trained and equipped than other groups. Their attacks have Nigerian oil output by about one quarter, helping send crude oil prices to near all-time highs.